Larry Bond - Dangerous Ground

“Yes, but I specialized in ROVs. And being a woman, as well as a junior employee at the lab, I was never picked for any of the at sea trials. I’ve only been to sea once before and that was on the research ship Knorr back in ‘98.” She paused, then almost started crying. “And I had no idea I’d feel like this! It never crossed my mind that I’d be so afraid! I should know better.”

“You do know better, Emily, but this isn’t a rational thing. It’s pure emotion.”

“So what do I do about it?” At this point, with her anxiety out in the open, facing her new fear, she was trembling and pale.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. He was too new to submarines himself to have ever dealt with anything like this. Besides, the Navy’s psychological screening process weeded out any applicants for subs who showed even the slightest signs of claustrophobia. “Does Dr. Patterson know?”

“No!” She shook her head violently.

Ill-equipped to handle the situation, Jerry tried to think of whom he should hand over this delicate problem to. There weren’t too many sympathetic ears on this boat. In the end, Jerry went with his training. “Would you like to talk to the XO?”

“All right,” said Emily. The idea seemed to calm her a bit, and Jerry realized that talking about her fear might be the best therapy.

“Okay, then, why don’t you go to your stateroom and I’ll go find the XO and ask him to come and see you,” replied Jerry. Emily nodded and wiped her eyes with her shirtsleeve.

Hoping nobody was watching, the two ducked out of the wardroom and Jerry headed to control in search of the XO. He found him near the plotting tables talking to one of the quartermasters. Jerry waited until Bair had finished his conversation before approaching. “Sir, Dr. Davis would like to talk to you.”

Bair nodded and said, “Fine. Where is she?” he asked, looking around.

“In your, I mean her, stateroom.”

“And why is she there instead of here?” Bair asked.

“She needs to speak to you privately,” Jerry answered softy.

“This can’t be good.” Bair observed and left, heading forward to his old stateroom. Relieved, Jerry felt absolutely no guilt about passing the buck to the XO.

It was a late lunch, scheduled after Memphis had submerged. Apparently, Jerry wasn’t the only one aboard with a queasy stomach. He ate in the second sitting, which was fine with him. Not only did it give him a few more minutes for his appetite to return, but he could also pick out a good spot for the mission brief. All the junior officers ate quickly, so that the mess stewards could clean up by 1500. That’s when the Captain and Patterson had promised to finally brief the crew on their destination and what they would do when they got there.

The chiefs started showing up before the JOs had even finished eating, and by 1500, the tiny wardroom was jammed with all the officers not on watch and most of the chiefs.

Hardy entered, followed by the two ladies, and everyone did their best in the cramped space to come to attention. The Captain let them stand for a moment, then said, “Seats.” Emily Davis looked nervous, but that could have been for several reasons. Neither Hardy nor Patterson looked pleased.

The XO spread out a nautical chart and taped it to the bulkhead. A thick, dark black line stood out against the light blue and gray contours. It showed their track from New London, past Newfoundland, through the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland, then past Jan Mayen Island and Spitsbergen, and finally across the Barents Sea. It almost touched Novaya Zemlaya, a barren finger of land that reached up from the far northern coast of Russia. The Barents Sea lay on its western side, the smaller Kara Sea to the east. Novaya Zemlaya was part of the Russian Federation.

Hardy let everyone study the chart for a few moments, then stood.

“At the direction of the President, this boat has been assigned a special mission.” He pointed to the chart. “This is our route for the next twelve days. We will approach the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlaya, survey several environmentally sensitive sites, collect water and sediment samples, as well as other information, then return.”

Jerry heard a buzz of conversation, with the word “environmental” repeated several times, always with a questioning tone. Mitchell was more puzzled at the general reaction than Hardy’s announcement. He guessed this was not a typical mission.

“Dr. Patterson will now explain exactly what we’re going to do.” Hardy motioned to Patterson, who was sitting to his right. She stood up quickly and glanced at a pad of paper.

“President Huber has been a champion of the environment since his days as governor of Arizona. Even before that, as a state senator, he had led the drive for the cleanup of the San Sebastian waste site, as well as. ”

Jerry fought the urge to tune her out completely. There was always the chance she might say something useful.

Patterson droned on for another five minutes about Huber’s environmental consciousness, managing to work in how essential her expertise had been to the President during the election, and now as part of the President’s Science Advisory Board. “It’s vital that the President do well with this issue. The environmental vote is one of his core constituencies. It’s never too early to start thinking about the next election.”

Maybe she thought the silence in the room was polite attentiveness. Jerry, proudly apolitical, was repelled by the entire concept. A patrol to further a president’s reelection chances?

She handed a second chart to Davis, who taped it up over the first one. A detailed chart of the Novaya Zemlaya’s east coast, it was marked top secret, and was covered with angular shapes, crosshatched in several colors.

“These are locations that we know have been used by the Soviets — and now the Russians — as dumps for everything from toxic waste to fueled nuclear reactors. Red marks radioactive waste, orange is machinery, yellow toxic material, and purple is unknown. We are going to collect photographs and samples from these sites, enough evidence to convince any objective observer that the waste is leaking into the environment on a massive scale. They’ve denied it, of course.”

She looked out at the officers and chiefs, as if expecting an answer — or at least agreement. For the first time since she’d come aboard, Patterson was smiling, her manner animated. It was clear to Jerry that she cared deeply about this, although he wasn’t sure if it was the environment or the President’s political agenda.

“In two months, at the World Environmental Congress in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the President will confront the Russian delegation with the evidence we collect. He’ll discredit them and gain stature with every country there. And then there’s the domestic audience. This has the potential to add at least ten points to his approval rating.”

She said the last sentence with so much enthusiasm Jerry almost laughed. She obviously expected her audience to react to this happy possibility. When they didn’t, she stood silently for a moment, then seemed to shrug it off.

She turned to Hardy. “I want to talk about the ship’s speed. Your ‘transit speed’ is fifteen knots.” She consulted her notes to make sure she used the proper term.

Looking at the list, she asked, “Who is Lieutenant Commander Ho?”

The Engineer raised his hand. “Yes, ma’am?”

“As soon as we’re done with the ROV trials this afternoon, change our speed to twenty-five knots.” She saw surprise in the Engineer’s face and paused. “This sub can move at least twenty-five knots, can’t it? I looked up your speed. We can reach our destination in about half the time.”